## Facts

- The EU adopted 2014 restrictive measures responding to Russia’s actions destabilizing Ukraine, including a CFSP decision and an implementing regulation targeting, among others, PJSC Rosneft Oil Company.
- UK authorities implemented the EU measures domestically.
- Rosneft challenged the legality of the EU measures and related UK implementation before the High Court of Justice (England & Wales).
- The Divisional Court referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber) seeking preliminary rulings on:
  - the CJEU’s jurisdiction to review CFSP restrictive measures;
  - the validity of provisions restricting access to capital markets and limiting certain oil-sector goods and services; and
  - interpretation of terms used in the sanctions regime, including financial and oil-exploration concepts.

## Issues

1. Whether the CJEU has jurisdiction, on a preliminary reference, to rule on the validity and interpretation of a CFSP decision imposing restrictive measures on legal persons.
2. Whether the challenged provisions were invalid for exceeding CFSP competence limits (including under the TEU’s CFSP/non-CFSP boundary rules).
3. Whether the measures were incompatible with the EU–Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.
4. Whether the measures violated general principles and fundamental rights, including legal certainty, *nulla poena sine lege certa*, equal treatment, proportionality, the duty to give reasons, and effective judicial protection.
5. How key prohibitions in the regulation should be interpreted, and whether certain technical interpretation questions were admissible on a reference.

## Decision

- The CJEU held it had jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on CFSP restrictive measures against natural or legal persons within the exceptions to the CFSP jurisdictional limitation, including review for compliance with the TEU’s competence-boundary rule and review of restrictive measures’ legality.
- The Court upheld the validity of the contested provisions of the CFSP decision and the regulation.
- The Court rejected challenges based on competence limits, the EU–Russia PCA, and alleged violations of general principles and fundamental rights.
- The Court interpreted several regulatory terms relevant to financial restrictions and related services.
- The Court declared inadmissible certain highly technical interpretation requests (including the meaning of “shale” and “waters deeper than 150 metres”) because the national court had not shown they were necessary to decide the dispute.

## Legal Principles

- Limits on EU judicial review in CFSP matters are construed strictly where restrictive measures target individuals or entities; judicial review remains available within express treaty exceptions.
- CFSP measures may have indirect economic effects without exceeding CFSP competence, so long as their object and content pursue CFSP external-policy objectives.
- International agreements invoked against EU sanctions may be subject to security exceptions; sanctions adopted to protect essential security interests may be consistent with such agreements.
- Legal certainty and *nulla poena sine lege certa* require sanction rules to be sufficiently clear, assessed in context and in light of the measures’ objectives and accompanying definitions and annexes.
- In external relations and sanctions policy, the political institutions have broad discretion; proportionality review asks whether measures are manifestly inappropriate to the stated objectives.
- Equal treatment permits differentiated treatment when objectively justified by the measure’s aims and the targeted entities’ characteristics.
- A preliminary reference on interpretation is inadmissible where the referring court does not demonstrate the requested ruling’s necessity to resolve the national dispute.

## Conclusion

The CJEU confirmed that, despite general CFSP limits, it can review and interpret CFSP restrictive measures targeting persons within treaty exceptions, and it upheld core elements of the EU’s 2014 Russia sanctions against Rosneft against competence, treaty-compatibility, and rights-based challenges while declining to answer unnecessary technical questions.


Rosneft Oil Co. v. Her Majesty’s Treasury (Rosneft), Case C-72/15 (C.J.E.U. 2017)